Silvertomb can only, really be described as a supergroup. It’s a bit of a last century cliche, but with Silvertomb, there isn’t any other word that is accurate. The band revolves around the 2 ex-members of Type O Negative; Kenny Hicky (Type O Negative, Seventh Void) and Johnny Kelly (Type O Negative, Danzig), but the other members are hardly unknown; Hank Hell (Seventh Void, Inhuman), Joseph James (Agnostic Front, Inhuman) and Aaron Joos (Awaken The Shadow, Empyreon). The band have been slowly getting things together since tragedy caused the breakup of Type O Negative. Edge Of Existence is the band's first album.
The style on offer here will probably disappoint anyone who was hoping for Type O Negative part 2. This isn’t an attempt to re-live history, no matter how attractive that might have seemed, I’m glad they haven’t done that. Silvertomb has its own sound; ok that sound is still rooted in the early nineties, but not in a Type O way. What we get from Edge Of Existence, is a mix of huge Doom, a little bit reminiscent of Crowbar, and early nineties grunge, particularly Alice In Chains or Stone Temple Pilots with maybe a little bit of Soundgarden as well. The guitar tone and production in general fits in with the grungy feel of the album. Most of the pacing is mid to low paced as you’d expect from a doom album. Kenny Hicky’s voice is good, fairly high register with a bit of a rasp to it. It’s full of personality and is one of this albums strong points.
Highlights for me are: Insomnia - Sunrise is a great swaggery rocker that kicks the album off in great style. It’s alt-rock that is driving and powerful. So True is a cracking mix of fast and punky doom, and a more measured and controlled style that is slower, but is a nice juxtaposition to the punk aggression. It’s not all heavy and aggressive; Sleeping On Nails And Wine is a soft acoustic track that is genuinely beautiful, and feels like a nursery rhyme. The last track on the album is also rather special, Waiting has an acoustic beginning that feels a little bit like Blind Melon and then goes into uptempo grunge that is a little bit like Stone Temple Pilots.
It isn’t all good however. There are a couple of places where the pacing isn’t quite right. Right Of Passage-Crossing Ov has a couple of places where the tempo drops and the song feels plodding and lacklustre. It’s a shame that there are a few small sections where this happens, as the rest of the album is excellent. Edge Of Existence is a very good album. If it hadn’t had the few pacing problems, it would be a great album. But let’s not forget that this, despite the illustrious persons involved in this project, is a first album. If this is what Kenny, Johnny and friends produce on a first try, then I can not wait to hear album number 2. 7/10
Torpor: Rhetoric Of The Image (Sludgelord Records) [Paul Scoble]
Torpor are a London based 3 piece. The 3 in question are Lauren Mason (Bass, Vocals), Simon Mason (Drums, Vocals) and Jon Taylor (Guitar). Rhetoric Of The Image is the bands second album coming 4 years after the bands debut, From Nothing Comes Everything. The album features five songs that are split into 3 long, sludgy, heavy tracks and 2 shorter, less heavy tracks. The album opens with Benign Circle, which has a feel that is a mix of huge sludgy nastiness and very soft and quiet sections. The heavy parts are very sludgy with angry, harsh vocals. There is a little bit of a Post Metal feel to some of the riffs, which are also discordant, and gain a certain amount of swagger as the song progresses. Two Heads On Gold is mainly a noise track. We get keyboard swells and distortion, the vocals are spoken word, moving to shouted at the end of the track.
Enigmatic Demand is another long track. The song has a very long, slow build before a simple strummed acoustic guitar comes in. The song then goes into a massively nasty sludgy riff. The vocals are harsh and angry, which fits with the rest of the track which, by now, is heavy, aggressive and viscous. This track is quite simple, but my god, it’s effective! Mouths Full Of Water, Throats Full Of Ice is soft, short, ballad like and very beautiful. The track features what sounds like a tambourine to me, and soft clean vocals. Mmmm, Lovely. Mourning The Real has a very long, brooding intro, before the Huge, Heavy and Harsh comes crashing in again. The track has a softer, cleaner section, before the huge riffs come back to batter the listener into submission. The heavy is back, but this time it’s more measured, with a little bit more drive and powers the track to an end in a nicely relentless way. Cracking way to end the album.
Rhetoric Of The Image is a great album. It’s huge and aggressive, nasty and discordant. The structure of the album helps you enjoy the it. The short track that are markedly different from the huge and heavy longer tracks, act as palette cleansers that clear away the nasty, so you are ready for more. A very, clever, well written album that comes highly recommended. 8/10
Grim Reaper: At The Gates (Dissonance Records) [Paul Hutchings]
And the NWOBHM keeps on coming. Grim Reaper formed in 1979, in Droitwich with guitarist Nick Bowcott the main face. Recruiting vocalist Steve Grimmett proved to be a masterstroke, as Grimmett was the voice on debut release See You In Hell and their follow up Fear No Evil. The band disbanded in 1988, with a reformation happening in 2006. Now billed as Steve Grimmett’s Grim Reaper, this is the second album since their return, with Grimmett having suffered a well-publicised leg amputation in 2017. With my respect for Grimmett in place as a stalwart of the old school metal community, it was difficult to really get enthused about this album.
Firstly, Grimmett’s vocals are average at best, and whilst he can hold a note okay, there’s nothing which gets the breath pumping. Secondly, whilst the band are competent in their musicianship, this is another album that contains virtually nothing that sticks in the memory for more than a couple of minutes. In a saturated field, it takes something a bit special to really stand out these days and I’m afraid that Grim Reaper don’t fire much in terms of excitement. Kudos for Grimmett’s dedication to the cause. It is endearing in every respect, but this is pedestrian old school NWOBHM fare. 5/10
Caiina: Gentle Illness (Apocalyptic Witchcraft Records) [Val D'Arcy]
Caiina have throughout their past, skirted around the peripheries of Black Metal, dipping in and out whilst drawing on everything from improvised jazz to dark ambient synth and everything in between. This album is no real exception, Gentle Illness is an excruciating episode of theatrical noise that is as experimental as it is primal. The antithetical title Gentle Illness is representative both of individual, human conditions and those of the larger collective society. Themes of suicide, degradation, treatment and mysticism make up the subject of this record. There are a number of different elements that make up Gentle Illness, each carrying its own difficulty rating for you as a listener. From the relatively accessible sections of post black and prog metal, to the borderline-noise, raw black metal, to the dark ambient atmospheric, to the outright strange cacophonies that make up some of the more obscure passages.
As a fan of Black Metal, with a particular fondness for the chaotic style I enjoy many aspects of this; think GGUW crossed with Gnaw Their Tongues with some (older, dirtier) Anaal Nathrakh and you're not a million miles off. But where Caiina may have stayed closer to the confines of Black Metal's stylistic parameters in the past, Gentle Illness does have a tendency to stray much further afield and for longer periods of time. If you're a fan of dark ambient and noise, less so of Black Metal there's probably more for you to get on with here than fans of the latter. That said, there are recognisable structures in several of the tracks, even accidental melodies which peer through the cracks, always to be enveloped in nightmares again before too long. But those fleeting moments of respite do just enough to allow the listener to consume what is a very dense 37 minutes as something resembling a singular album. Gentle Illness is an abstract view into a troubled soul, of the microcosm of the individual to the macrocosm of society, its neither easy nor always pleasant. 5/10
Torpor are a London based 3 piece. The 3 in question are Lauren Mason (Bass, Vocals), Simon Mason (Drums, Vocals) and Jon Taylor (Guitar). Rhetoric Of The Image is the bands second album coming 4 years after the bands debut, From Nothing Comes Everything. The album features five songs that are split into 3 long, sludgy, heavy tracks and 2 shorter, less heavy tracks. The album opens with Benign Circle, which has a feel that is a mix of huge sludgy nastiness and very soft and quiet sections. The heavy parts are very sludgy with angry, harsh vocals. There is a little bit of a Post Metal feel to some of the riffs, which are also discordant, and gain a certain amount of swagger as the song progresses. Two Heads On Gold is mainly a noise track. We get keyboard swells and distortion, the vocals are spoken word, moving to shouted at the end of the track.
Enigmatic Demand is another long track. The song has a very long, slow build before a simple strummed acoustic guitar comes in. The song then goes into a massively nasty sludgy riff. The vocals are harsh and angry, which fits with the rest of the track which, by now, is heavy, aggressive and viscous. This track is quite simple, but my god, it’s effective! Mouths Full Of Water, Throats Full Of Ice is soft, short, ballad like and very beautiful. The track features what sounds like a tambourine to me, and soft clean vocals. Mmmm, Lovely. Mourning The Real has a very long, brooding intro, before the Huge, Heavy and Harsh comes crashing in again. The track has a softer, cleaner section, before the huge riffs come back to batter the listener into submission. The heavy is back, but this time it’s more measured, with a little bit more drive and powers the track to an end in a nicely relentless way. Cracking way to end the album.
Rhetoric Of The Image is a great album. It’s huge and aggressive, nasty and discordant. The structure of the album helps you enjoy the it. The short track that are markedly different from the huge and heavy longer tracks, act as palette cleansers that clear away the nasty, so you are ready for more. A very, clever, well written album that comes highly recommended. 8/10
Grim Reaper: At The Gates (Dissonance Records) [Paul Hutchings]
And the NWOBHM keeps on coming. Grim Reaper formed in 1979, in Droitwich with guitarist Nick Bowcott the main face. Recruiting vocalist Steve Grimmett proved to be a masterstroke, as Grimmett was the voice on debut release See You In Hell and their follow up Fear No Evil. The band disbanded in 1988, with a reformation happening in 2006. Now billed as Steve Grimmett’s Grim Reaper, this is the second album since their return, with Grimmett having suffered a well-publicised leg amputation in 2017. With my respect for Grimmett in place as a stalwart of the old school metal community, it was difficult to really get enthused about this album.
Firstly, Grimmett’s vocals are average at best, and whilst he can hold a note okay, there’s nothing which gets the breath pumping. Secondly, whilst the band are competent in their musicianship, this is another album that contains virtually nothing that sticks in the memory for more than a couple of minutes. In a saturated field, it takes something a bit special to really stand out these days and I’m afraid that Grim Reaper don’t fire much in terms of excitement. Kudos for Grimmett’s dedication to the cause. It is endearing in every respect, but this is pedestrian old school NWOBHM fare. 5/10
Caiina: Gentle Illness (Apocalyptic Witchcraft Records) [Val D'Arcy]
Caiina have throughout their past, skirted around the peripheries of Black Metal, dipping in and out whilst drawing on everything from improvised jazz to dark ambient synth and everything in between. This album is no real exception, Gentle Illness is an excruciating episode of theatrical noise that is as experimental as it is primal. The antithetical title Gentle Illness is representative both of individual, human conditions and those of the larger collective society. Themes of suicide, degradation, treatment and mysticism make up the subject of this record. There are a number of different elements that make up Gentle Illness, each carrying its own difficulty rating for you as a listener. From the relatively accessible sections of post black and prog metal, to the borderline-noise, raw black metal, to the dark ambient atmospheric, to the outright strange cacophonies that make up some of the more obscure passages.
As a fan of Black Metal, with a particular fondness for the chaotic style I enjoy many aspects of this; think GGUW crossed with Gnaw Their Tongues with some (older, dirtier) Anaal Nathrakh and you're not a million miles off. But where Caiina may have stayed closer to the confines of Black Metal's stylistic parameters in the past, Gentle Illness does have a tendency to stray much further afield and for longer periods of time. If you're a fan of dark ambient and noise, less so of Black Metal there's probably more for you to get on with here than fans of the latter. That said, there are recognisable structures in several of the tracks, even accidental melodies which peer through the cracks, always to be enveloped in nightmares again before too long. But those fleeting moments of respite do just enough to allow the listener to consume what is a very dense 37 minutes as something resembling a singular album. Gentle Illness is an abstract view into a troubled soul, of the microcosm of the individual to the macrocosm of society, its neither easy nor always pleasant. 5/10
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